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It's just not right.

2004-12-02
2:53 p.m.

Some of you know about the tragedies in my family this year, but I know some of you don't. My two sisters-in-law were killed in accidents just two months apart, and one of my brothers was badly injured.

On Valentine's Day, my SIL and her best friend left a casino between 3 and 4 in the morning to travel back to their home city about 60 miles away. My sister-in-law was driving. She had been up nearly 24 hours, she was driving around 70 miles an hour in the rain, and on later tests we would find out she had alcohol in her bloodstream, though she was not legally drunk.

Her vehicle left the interstate and hit a tree. Her friend survived the accident, but had multiple fractures and a head injury. She does not even remember being at the casino, much less the accident.

Her friend has recovered, and her husband and two daughters are lucky to have her. My brother and his two teenaged children lost a wife and a mom, and my SIL's family lost a daughter and sister. We really thought this was the worst thing that could happen to our family. We so did not see what was coming next.

On April 24, just two months and ten days later, my other brother and his wife were returning home from a friend's house in a neighboring town. They had ridden their motorcycle over there. It was the night before their 17th wedding anniversary.

A 17-year-old boy turned left into their motorcycle as they traveleled approximately 50 MPH down the highway. Obviously he just didn't see them.

My SIL was thrown 140 feet and my brother was thrown 110 feet. The bulk of the impact was taken by my brother's left leg, between the car and the motorcyle.

The news reports have stated that my SIL died an hour later at the hospital, but my conversations with a driver that was there leads me to belive she actually died at the scene. I can't stand the thought that she might have lived in pain for another hour after such a terrible accident.

Initially doctors recommended my mother authorize helicopter transporting my brother to the big city trauma center, but then told her they couldn't do it because he would not survive the trip. He was immediately sedated (and remained sedated for the next eight days), and spent the next three days fighting for his life in the small city hospital.

He was transferred to a bigger city hospital late in the night on the third day, where he spent the next two weeks in ICU, having multiple surgeries, the first of which was to amputate his left leg well between his knee and hip. We also later found out he had lost most of the vision in his left eye, and now has only a tunnel vision in it.

He was allowed to come out of sedation the day of his wife's funeral. Not because of that, it just happened to be when the doctors decided he was ready.

We were all afraid he would mentally just quit trying to live when he found out his wife had died and he'd lost his leg. But he surprised all of us with just how strong he is, both physically and mentally and emotionally.

The next two and a half months he spent in the hospital, before finally being released to my mom's care. Her home was already wheelchair-accessible, and he needed her help, too.

He is still at my mom's, though he has recently gotten a prosthesis and is working very hard to walk again. We are all counting laps across the living room with him, and I expect a report every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after his therapy. A report he happily gives.

Yesterday we found out the 17-year-old boy who hit them was cleared of all charges. God, did that hurt.

There hasn't been much conversation about this boy, once we found out he was okay. There was no contact from his family to find out about my brother. We have come to learn he's a punk, a badass, who has had several run-ins with the law already at 17.

His family had the minimum insurance required by the state, which means my brother receives the princely sum of $10,000 for his injuries, a figure his health insurance has already laid claim to. I don't know if he receives $10,000 for his wife as well, or if that will go to the health insurance too.

Thank God he had good health insurance, or where would he be? That health insurance was one of his wife's benefits, as my brother is a self-employed truck driver.

This boy who hit them did not even receive a traffic ticket for his negligence in the accident. Does that seem fair????

None of us wanted the proverbial "pound of flesh", and we didn't even really want him to go to jail. We all know he has to live with what he's done for the rest of his life. But we all thought he would receive some punishment from the justice system. We are all shocked he received nothing.

I think the perfect punishment would be him having to come and stay with my brother for a week. Watch him trying to learn to walk again, listen to the pain and anguish he's endured. And maybe he could help my brother figure out what to do for a job now. Because of the loss of some of his eyesight, he will most likely not be able to get his CDL license back.

I think he should have to visit my SIL's family, and hear how much they miss their daughter and sister. And a visit with her best friend would be in order. She misses SIL terribly, too.

I want him to see my 69-year-old mom being the caretaker for my brother. A role she never saw herself fulfilling in his life again. Maybe she could tell him how she lays awake some nights, worried that "these things come in threes, and we've lost two. Who's next?"

I would like him to see just how much my other brother has suffered, the one who lost his wife on Valentine's Day. He was already in so much pain, but he had to put aside some of his own grieving time to deal with the motorcylce accident.

And I could tell him how my eight-year-old son now believes any time there's an accident, someone dies. A fact we've gone over again and again to reassure him is not usually true.

It just seems to me this boy needs to have a good hands-on lesson to think over in his lifetime. I know he has to live with it, God I know that's a burden to carry, but he wasn't even inconvenienced in his everyday life. Not even a traffic ticket. Would that have been too much to ask? It's just not right.


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